Ekati Mirtor Manushera Bhalobhasha
by Everion Radnor
Summary: Alfred falls in love with a man. A ghost, to be precise. A Bengali ghost. The title is Bengali for "The Love Of A Dead Man"
1. Epilogue

Epilogue:

"Come to West Bengal, she said", the American grumbled, lugging his suitcase along in the sweltering heat, sunglasses perched precariously on his head, "It'll be fun, she said."  
When had ever listening to Pritha yielded good things? Other than studying for the tests at college, that is.  
Speaking of Pritha, where was she?  
She turned up half an hour later, smiling so happily, that Alfred couldn't find it in his heart to yell at her.  
"I'm so sorry I'm late! Ma sat me down with the others to talk about the foreigner coming to stay in our house." She nudged Alfred playfully.  
Alfred harrumphed. She rolled her eyes and stole his sunglasses from his head.  
The streets of Kolkata reminded him of how London was before the Great Fire of 1666. People, cars disregarding the people and stray dogs disregarding the cars and people. There was the smell of asphalt, car fumes and food overwhelming his nose.  
He mentioned it to Pritha, who laughed it off. "Same here", she said happily. "It was so disorienting, but you actually get used to it."  
Pritha's mother was a perpetually happy woman and twinkling eyes. It seemed that the genes for everlasting smiles ran in the family. Her father, a strict-looking man with glasses, had a penchant for dark humor that made Pritha laugh and her mother-her name was Samita he later learnt- cluck and flap at him with the day's newspaper.  
"_Ashobo! Abhodro kothabatta!"  
_Pritha leant over and whispered the meaning in his ear. "She's telling him to shut up."  
"Don't translate that!" Her mom cried.  
"Too late, Ma."  
The food was spicy and the gossip channel on the television that even spicier. The hot sunlight streamed in through the big windows and yet, the house was cold.  
When the hubbub had died down and Pritha's family napping, they went to the huge lake close by.  
Alfred noticed her eyeing the water longingly. 'Don't."  
She grumped. "Fine."  
When they had circuited the lake, they sat down on a bench overlooking the water, a tree shading them.  
"How's is it all?" she asked, much more pensive and quiet.  
"Pretty much the same, Pritha."  
"Are they still fighting?"  
"Yeah."  
"Are you still seeing those…things?"  
"Things that go bump in the night don't disappear easily, you know."  
"I know. Love life?"  
"Nonexistent as usual."  
"That's cause you push people away."  
"Pritha, I'd date you, but you're like this annoying older sister and incest is illegal."  
Pritha looked torn between horror and laughter.  
"Aw, hell. That's cute, but really, really, really weird. Seriously, though, aren't things working out well?"  
"Kid, I've spent the last five years all over the world with this job of mine. I decided to spend my holiday with you, since your puppy eyes are practically irresistible.  
"Oh, really?" Alfred did not like the way she grinned. "Remind me of that when I drag you to Gariahat tomorrow. The shopping center of Kolkata, Alfred."  
He pushed her into the water.

Another five years later, he called her.  
"Hey, Pritha?"  
"Listening, dude."  
"Name a place in Kolkata where I can buy a big house that's full of shady trees and nature."  
"Yes!" He could see her in her room right now, pumping her fists.  
"I know the perfect place, Alfred…but…-why ?"  
"It's time to stop running away from my fears."  
A happy sigh.  
"Hop on the next plane, bro. I promise I won't be late this time."  
"I've learnt Bengali."  
"Dammit! Now you'll be able to figure out when I call you a shitbag."  
"Whhaaaat?"  
"Just come over, you ass."


	2. Chapter 2:Alfred

Alfred Jones could see ghosts. And he was deathly afraid of them. They were everywhere. They followed people around, followed _him _around and asked him questions. They knew he could see them.  
He hated it.

All his life, they'd bothered him. He lost most of the friends he made quickly, due a combination of his attitude and the strange things that happened around him. He passed out of his high school from his little town, got accepted to Columbia and never looked back. He majored in history and biomechanics and then, he met Pritha Goswami.

She was a crazy student "doing science" as she put it, and soon, he found himself trusting her with his secret. And, unlike the others, she believed him. He'd asked her why and she had said simply,  
"Just because we can't see something doesn't mean it can't exist, Alfred."  
He supposed that when you were majoring in particle physics, you kind of had to trust your instincts.  
He told her of his dysfunctional family, of a brother who was mostly invisible and parents that were never home and of the letter he had sent to the family when he left university, a Doctor of History and the reply he got, one sentence.  
_Looks like we did something right by you. _  
She hadn't thought any less of him as a man when he'd cried into her shirt later that day. Or when he broke down after hearing of his brother, Matthew's death. Car accident, they said. Alfred knew better. Mattie told him what had really happened.  
All of this resulted in a cynical young man who hated what the world was capable of.  
Then, he met Arthur, a sharp-tongued Briton with acid green eyes. He fell in love with him. Pritha hated him.  
"He isn't good for you-or anyone, for that matter." She said this with her nose scrunched up.  
It was over this that Alfred and Pritha had their first fight.  
A month later, Arthur dumped him for a French guy named Francis. Alfred didn't cry-he simply took all the mementos of him and dumped them into the dustbin. He vowed never to fall in "love" again. Pritha went and broke Arthur's nose and got him drunk.  
"Good riddance to that bastard." She sniffed and patted Alfred on the shoulder.  
"Love's a bitch, kid."  
"I know." She squeezed his shoulder.  
He often wondered how he had gotten a friend like her. Loyal, brave, crazy. Dedicated. She didn't talk much about herself.  
"I'd rather focus on the present. And the future. Pasts are boring." She tried to balance her pen on her thumb.  
"You can learn from your past, you know."  
She put her feet on the table.  
"That's the only thing it's good for, Al."

He spent half a decade travelling, seeing the world. His skills were always in demand and he spent most of his time in a laboratory, classroom or the field. Pritha and Kiku were two of the few friends he had. So, when she asked him to visit India to see her, he remembered his college days and in a moment of weakness, bought a plane ticket.

He couldn't really admit it, but he grew to love India and its complexity, its variety. And he became a great fan of Rabindranath Tagore and lectured at Visva Bharati University on Indian art and the 21st century.  
So, he wasn't too surprised when Pritha drove him to Shantiniketan and put Gitanjali into his hands.  
His reminiscences about his first brush with Shakespeare make him quirk his mouth. He'd thought, _the man can't write romance to save a life._   
No one could write romance. Of all the disgusting plagues that have crawled through mankind's mind, all the wars and lamentations, _love_ has been the most dangerous one.  
But he'd been raised on classical literature, on Keats's flowers and Byron's ravens, so he couldn't get it out of his mind and therefore, his cracked shell of a heart.  
Well, he'd also hated Shakespeare because Arthur had loved it.  
But, he'd left that in his past, it was time to live in the present,

"How is it?"  
He looked at her shining face, at the house, mansion and at his wallet.  
"I love it." He chuckled.  
He bought it, the house, because that's what she insisted on calling it, and smiled to himself.


	3. Chapter 3:Pritha's Grand Idea

Pritha Goswami was an upstart.  
She'd been raised on a diet of mashed legumes and Kant; she ate eggs while reading _Science_, she had a crush on Carl Sagan.  
This, however, did not prevent her from being a little girl.  
She wanted to be everything and nothing, all at once. She wanted to be a person to be admired, feted and doted upon.  
However, she did not want love.  
She's had enough of love in her short life; for her, her books and her thoughts were enough and she wanted nothing else.  
Once, she'd told Alfred, her best friend, her only friend, her brother what she thought about emotion.  
_'It clouds your judgement, affects our ability to think. It weakens you."  
_Pritha loathed the time Alfred had spent mooning over that complete_ bitch _of a man. He'd been absolutely starry-eyes over him. She could understand romance, but with _him?_  
She blamed the affair on poor eyesight and Alfred's strange mix of man and child. She also wished Francis good luck with Arthur, sniggering.  
There was something off about Arthur Kirkland and she loved picking at mysteries. If she couldn't solve them, she destroyed them.  
Well, Alfred's ego had taken a hit, but, there are seven billion people out there; he'd find a nice person soon and she could go on knocking neutrons together in peace. It still pricked at her though, the whole peccadillo.  
So, she invited him to India. Her partial homeland. The place she could just about stand. Some of her worst memories were here, but she bore it for Alfred's sake, because he was absolutely enchanted with the place. He loved it. He would quote Tagore just to annoy Kiku to no end.  
Meh. Kiku. An extremely clever Japanese man who would make a ninja/mercenary thingy cry for momma. He was all right. She loved hugging the guy. He was so small and apathetic, it was great fun making him yip in surprise, or terror. She knew what people thought of her-crazy, attention span of 2 year old, needs to be institutionalized-and she just loved proving them wrong and beneath her. Humans and chocolate are great, but, over a period of time, both are injurious to health and waistline.

Alfred, to her, was like a dream, an ideal, something to be believed in and held close to the heart. It didn't matter to her that he was slightly…strange. He wasn't kidding when he said he saw ghosts; she was pretty sure the vase that had fallen on her wasn't by accident. It was a win-win situation for Pritha; she doused his problems with her ideas and he notified her of the ghosts around.

Inviting him to a new land had been a brainwave. Now, she had just helped the local economy and made her friend very happy.  
Now, the only thing was to make sure the damn caretaker shut up about the blasted zamindar.


	4. Chapter 4:Aakash

Long ago, when his country had foreigners walking over it and the East India Company's flag on it, a man named Aakash Choudhury had been born in the same mansion that Alfred had bought nearly two, three centuries later.  
Aakash's mother died at birth and his father trained him to become the perfect zamindar-in-waiting, ready to take over when the elder Choudhury died.  
Aakash would have been Parambrata Choudhury's pride and joy if he'd been a little more interested in the nuances of politics and what the villagers thought and less enthusiastic about literature and emotions.  
So, he grew up to be a gentle young man, sensible and a little self-loathing, because he couldn't be what his father wanted him to be. He did what was asked of him and read the Bhagavad Gita in the morning; he learned to fire a musket; he did everything he could to please people. He married a young woman named Parvati to continue the bloodline.  
Then, he met an Englishman whom he fell in love with.

He tossed everything to the wind; he snuck out at night to meet him; he spent days with him, discussing everything under the sun. He learned what it was like to touch someone so that they'd writhe in ecstasy and to ask for more. Aakash was intoxicated with him, his white skin and his accent.  
His wife knew and said nothing. What could she say? She could not bring shame and dishonor to her husband and his family.  
It soon became a pattern, a weave that was familiar and to be followed. Aakash was happy with this, even as a drought killed the harvest and the growing noises of discontent reached the zamindar's abode.  
But, like all patterns, it came to an end, when, one morning, his British lover told him that it was over and he was going back to England. That he had found a wife and would settle down, happily ever after. He couldn't comprehend why this was happening.  
They fought and at last, when Aakash found he couldn't win, he threatened to reveal all of his secrets.  
His lover pulled out a pistol and shot at him.  
Even as he lay bleeding on the marble floor, he couldn't help but think dizzily that this was what love was supposed to be like.

He became a ghost.

Aakash stayed there for a long time, watching the burning of his body with disinterest. He couldn't help but notice that his wife, Parvati, did not cry.  
She was now a widow.  
Even cloistered in her tiny room, she still ran the house, the servants carrying out her orders. By the time the Revolt of 1857 came, she had gray streaks in her hair and a will of iron.  
He'd always known that Parvati had a backbone of steel.  
She died too, eventually and soon, the house was nothing but him and his dusty memories.  
He watched India learn of industrialization, watched her grow and become a force to be reckoned with. He saw the Lord Mountbatten and his wife at the ceremony that gifted his country her independence, at long last.  
All through this, he still believed in love.  
And now, he watched the foreigner and his friend chatter and walk through the overgrown trees and shrubs and followed them.  
He had been alone so long with the old caretaker, he couldn't help but be interested in their conversation.  
Imagine his surprise and shock when he learnt that the blonde man-his name was Alfred- would soon live there. It was immediately followed by anger-this was his house- and fear when he brushed too close to the man and he raised his blue, blue eyes and _looked at him_.  
He fled.


	5. Chapter 5: Guilt and a new house

Pritha had voted to go exploring in the wild overgrown jungle that was once a garden, and, as usual, she dragged the American along with her.  
"Pssssh-this guy has been doing a damn lot of caretaking, from what I can see." She snorted as she crashed through undergrowth and stomped on weeds.  
"Pritha, be careful, there might be a lot of-"a branch smacked him the face.  
He shut up after that, letting her lead the way and listened to her account of the mansion. The place was positively _swarming_ with ghosts, all affirming or shouting at Pritha's words.  
-_no, that wasn't the point  
-how does she know that?  
-now what do we do?  
_He could make out bits and pieces of the Bengali and Hindi they whispered, and this, together with his friend's monologue; he put together a story of the house on the hill.  
It was then, he realized, that they were being followed.  
A ghost was listening to them.  
Alfred promptly spread up, heart racing. He soon reached Pritha and grabbed her arm.  
"Why did you not tell me this place was haunted, you idiot?"  
She looked around, confused.  
"Huh. I didn't know that."  
"So you had no idea that a four-hundred year old building could be haunted?"  
"Erm, well…."  
"I will not play exorcist to these spirits, Pritha!"  
Alfred stiffened as something very, very cold brushed his arm gently. He looked to his side.  
A man was staring at him.  
He reminded him of a washed out version of the Bengali royals he had seen when he'd gone to the museum. Only, this ghost wore a white shirt and pants, an embroidered vest on top. A furrow between eyebrows traced with a painter's hand and rich brown eyes. Which were staring at him curiously. With a breath of cold air, it disappeared.  
"P-Pritha? I don't think I want to see anymore of this place."  
"Al, it's just a few seconds away-ah, here we are."  
They had come upon the fountain.  
It was a huge construction, of granite and marble, intricately carved with lotuses and elephants. A woman stood at the center, pouring a pitcher of water. If there had been any water, that is.  
"Jeez louise, Alfred, this is one fine place you've got. All we have to do is fix it up and it will be _beautiful_." She smacked him on the back. "What do you think?"  
The ghost who had brushed by him earlier was back, sitting on the edge of the fountain, chin resting on his hand and staring at him again. The wind blew through his hair, ruffling it.  
"Alfred?" Pritha was tugging on his arm, worried.  
"Is it them?"  
The ghost looked at him once more and vanished.  
"This place is going to need a lot of renovation, kid."  
Pritha looked at the sky and her watch. "It's getting late and the news said there was going to be rain. We'll come back tomorrow."  
Alfred remained staring at the fountain. He swallowed.  
"You're right. Let's go home."

It took a month for the contractors to get their act together and another two for them to start work. Alfred spent his time getting acquainted with the neighbors. They were a fun bunch of people.  
Pritha came down once or twice a week to see what was going on and yell at the men repairing the place. There was furniture to buy and wallpaper to choose. Pritha wanted him to modernize the mansion. He wanted to restore it to its original splendor. He didn't think the ghostly nut-cases would appreciate him changing their once home.  
He hadn't seen the ghost again.  
The old man in charge of the abode had been telling him something when Pritha kicked him out, declaring him a _chhagol_.  
"A goat? Seriously, dude?"  
"Yeah. He is nuts."  
To pass the time, he started drawing. He'd always been a good sketch artist and soon, he'd practically plotted the tiny town onto paper.  
He still hadn't seen the ghost.  
He'd asked once, who had lived in the place before him. The reaction of the townspeople was enough to dissuade him. Wikipedia was of no help either.  
So, he asked Pritha.  
"Its about time, Alfred. I was beginning to wonder if your curiosity had been knocked out of you."  
He gave her a look and the pencil behind his ear fell out.  
She smiled and sat down on the desk.  
"His name was Aakash Choudhury and he was last in a long line of Choudhurys. He apparently wasn't a great guy when it came to being a zamindar."  
"Zamindar?" questioned the American.  
"A land owner," she explained. 'Well, he was extremely intelligent and kind and had an affair with a British lord."  
Alfred's eyebrows flew up.  
"Yeah," she laughed, "he was a bit of a kook. Sucked at being a lord and all that. He was murdered, I believe, by the Briton who fled to England."  
"Poor guy," remarked Alfred. "How do you know all this? The people aren't answering my questions."  
"They won't," she muttered darkly, pursing her lips. "He is an abomination to them. I think you can guess why."  
"Second question," Alfred toyed with the pencil behind his ear. "What did he look like? I don't expect you to know, but-"  
"Average height, black hair, brown eyes, sharp nose. He had a propensity for dressing like the British, all shirts and pants and boots."  
Alfred turned very, very slowly and looked at the window, where the ghost leant. Pritha's description fit him perfectly.  
"Pritha?"  
"Hm?"  
"How do you know this?"  
"Sources, citations and people. Very useful. You don't think I'd make you buy a place I knew nothing about, do you?"  
The ghost smirked and crossed his arms. He was watching them.  
"Alfred, did you see him?"  
"Huh? I-No!"  
"Liar."  
"Am not!"  
"You are. How's he like?"  
"I don't know!"  
"Ah, he probably won't do anything to you. He's most likely really nice." Pritha started cleaning her nails.  
"And he wants me to leave."  
"You just bought his home. I expect a certain amount of antagonism on his part, nothing serious."  
"Uh…this wasn't a good idea."  
"You signed the contract, you made the deal. It's an amazing place. The townspeople love you. Chill."  
"You think he understands English?"  
She gave Alfred the how-freaking-dumb-are-you look. "Why shouldn't he?"  
"Ah, I don't know."  
They sat in silence for a few minutes.  
"Pritha, will you come and visit me often?"  
"I'll spend the weekends here, if it pleases you. I don't like the city much."  
"Yeah, you're only here for the cyclotron they're building."  
"I'm the Indian face of particle accelerators. Blasted stereotypes."  
"Don't give me that look. I know you're screaming like a little girl inside about it."  
"Oh, shut up."  
The ghost chuckled and vanished.

Soon enough, with much screaming on Pritha's part and cold water over her head courtesy of Alfred, the last stone was laid into place and the switch connecting the mansion to the Grid thrown.  
The place was beautiful. Huge hallways, rooms and windows. Décor that made the place glow. The chandelier had been cleaned and fixed. The garden was all freshly planted grass. The fountain tinkled.  
Pritha and Alfred sat in the huge verandah, a bottle of champagne and glasses with them.  
"To your new home, Al."  
Their glasses clinked and they drank to the stars.  
"You can stay here, for now."  
She glanced at him, amused.  
"I won't always be here. You should spend some time alone, get used to the place. Plus, I don't think the people down there, especially the shopkeeper, Munna, like me very much."  
"I like you."  
She laughed and ruffled his hair, hugging him tightly.  
"Goodnight. Sweet dreams. The dark isn't always your enemy."  
He heard her thump down the stairs and leave, her headlights illuminating the huge driveway and gates.  
Under the velvet night sky, no ghosts around, he could close his eyes and think.  
Matthew.  
He groaned and covered his eyelids with the crook of his eyebrow. Alfred sorely missed Matthew, his often invisible, adorable brother. The better man.  
_He'd been doing his homework in the tiny dorm room he shared with Kiku. The Japanese man was away and he'd gotten up to open the window when he heard Mattie's voice, as clear as if he was standing next to him.  
Which he was.  
"Matt?! What, what are you doing here?"  
Matthew rushed into his brother's arms…and passed right though him.  
"Alfred…"he whispered.  
"Matt?" He daren't ask what happened. No, he knew what had happened.  
He looked at the blood and gore smeared all over his twin's face, glasses smashed and half an abdomen left.  
"Alfred..don't believe them…" He was fading now, growing insubstantial and weak, like smoke in the wind. He reached out to hold his brother one last time…  
…and disappeared into the night.  
He screamed.  
If he had stayed, if he hadn't left Matthew alone, maybe he would still be alive today._  
Alfred lay curled up into the blanket and desperately wished he'd asked Pritha to stay. She knew how to stop him from feeling guilty.

He hadn't seen Matthew's ghost since. He had no wish to. It would be like having his failure as a brother dance before his eyes. He also hadn't gone to the funeral. He would probably have tore into his parents if he had. He sent Kiku in his place.  
His entire life was nothing but guilt and misery.

Alfred fell asleep and dreamed. Of days and nights and thick eyebrows and thin, drawn ones and of chocolate eyes looking down at him.


	6. Chapter 6: Learning

Aakash doubled over in laughter when he had disappeared. The girl, Pritha had been telling Alfred the American about him when he turned up. It was surprising how someone who saw ghosts was so scared of them.  
However, he still didn't like the taking over of his place. It was much better now, without the cobwebs and dust. He wished he was able to run his hands over the furniture and shiny new faucets and actually _feel_ them.  
He wondered what the American was doing now. He'd established that the man could see him, and he found this…interesting. Nobody had paid attention to him for two centuries now.  
It was nice to have someone notice him. Being alone with none but his memories was painful, to say the least. The others wouldn't talk to him. He didn't mind. They were rather mean anyway.

Aakash found the man in the kitchen, solemn and nursing a cup of coffee while perusing the paper. He didn't seem to notice him. The ghost found himself studying the man, tracing the curve of his shoulders, the way his fingers wrapped around the handle of the white mug, the troubled look on his face.  
Alfred was a curiosity, a bright pebble on muddy ground. He wanted to know more about him.  
The whole day, he followed him around, judging, assessing, wondering. He brushed by him a few times, like he had on the day they'd first met, but he never looked up.  
Was he avoiding him?

Alfred nearly whimpered when the ghost leant over his shoulder to see what he was writing.  
Oh God, this was creeping him out. _Why _had he listened to Pritha?  
He was curious, non-threatening, hell, he could be a friend.  
So why was Alfred so scared when he touched him? Why did he shiver like that?  
He'd spent the day in the gardens, sketching and writing up the report on wall paintings in Norway and Aakash had just sat there, on the rim of the fountain, shimmering in the sun and watching him.  
Why on Earth did he smirk like that? It made the blue-eyed man feel extremely exposed and vulnerable. Maybe that was his plan. Scare him enough to leave the house.

He did some looking up on Aakash Choudhury. There wasn't much. He was pretty much just a statistic for the English. He wondered who was the man Aakash had fallen in love with.

Damn, it was unnerving, having a dead man stare at you while you looked up his life online.  
He was glad Aakash didn't talk. He'd probably shriek then. He wasn't in the mood to chat up a ghost either.  
Oh, why wouldn't he please stop _staring_?  
Growling under his breath, he picked up his things and went into the house. As expected, Aakash trailed after him a few feet behind, but there, nonetheless.

Alfred logged on to Skype that night and found Kiku online.  
He logged off.  
Alfred wanted to keep it private, separate. India was his little hideaway. Nobody would, should, find him here, hidden in palm trees and grass.

Gradually, Alfred became used to his quiet, smiling shadow that never talked. He no longer jumped when Aakash went past him or sat opposite him. Perhaps, it could be called awkward, two men, living in one abode, never acknowledging each other, but Alfred found it comfortable. Soon enough, it even became a little soothing, having him around.  
He never knew it, but Aakash kept the others away.

Pritha dropped by often, to enquire upon his state of health and smack him on the head, or drag him out to go shopping in one of those glitzy malls. Also, to ask about the ghost.  
"He follows me around all the time and never says a word."  
"He try to harm you in anyway?"  
"No."  
"You're lonely up there."  
"I won't have it any other way."

The townsfolk often engaged him in conversation when he went down there to buy eggs, or milk. Saathi invited him to her house to dinner. He politely declined.  
He knew he was becoming a hermit, but it was so much simpler, having engaging work and a paycheck and a physicist and protoplasmic being for company. As far as he knew, no one missed him and he missed no one.

Alfred still didn't acknowledge Aakash, but his eyes met his nowadays.

The mango trees in the garden were laden with fruit and whenever he felt hungry, he simply had to go outside and pluck one off of the tree. He and Pritha had a fruit fight using them, and by the end of it, they smelled thoroughly of mangoes. She taught him how to make mango pickles and chutney.  
"Family recipe?" he asked her.  
"Mother's actually."  
Some mornings, he didn't want to get up. It felt as if some part of him inside was hollow. He could not, for the life of him, figure out why. He had everything and those he didn't were unimportant matters.

Soon, the monsoon rolled around and the smell of wet earth pervaded his senses wherever he went.  
He found it hilarious that Pritha would screech like a cat if pushed into the rain. And so, he often did that to her when she was least expecting it. In revenge, she dumped an entire bottle of orange juice over his head.  
"Pity," she said casually as Alfred glared at her, sopping wet and orangey, "I should have drunk it."

He learnt to dance in the rain and let it soak through every pore of his being. He learnt to make paneer, or cottage cheese, as it was commonly known. He had a large swing with an awning installed on the rooftop and there, while away his time with his work and his music. He sketched the mansion and the fountain. He drew Aakash sitting in his usual spot on the fountain rim and after a moment's hesitation, rubbed him out.

He still couldn't acknowledge him.


End file.
